I hear the clock a-ticking

I'm chronically slow about my paperwork. There was one form I had to fill in, for my re-employment, which was basically the same form I filled in last time, and when I first got the job, amounting to listing my name, address in the foreign country from which I come, my academic history, spots for my employer (or ``sponsor'' as the form puts it) to fill in details of my job, all that. The Ministry of Manpower, which they openly refer to as M-O-M though it demands no tribute from the robot community, needs this before they'll give out an application for an employment pass renewal. Some of this stuff I had to look up, if nothing else to be consistent with whatever I claimed last time, and I hadn't quite gotten to it yet.

Today I got an e-mail from the Dean's Office Secretary saying she wanted me to turn in the form now so they could apply for my new employment pass. I e-mailed back saying yes, I'm sorry, I was just trying to get a few bits of data (and a recent passport-size photograph, which they insist on), and I would have it all there as soon as possible. Without exaggeration, seconds after I sent my e-mail, I got a call from the Secretary. She explained the form wasn't important, please just come over because they have the new application for the Employment Pass and all I have to do is sign it.

So I went over with the most-complete-I-got form and got them out and she explained that I didn't need to turn it in, they had everything they needed already and I just had to sign the application. I showed the nearly-complete form and apologized again, but she said they didn't need it. But she took the form anyway. There may not be a use for it, but it'll now be on file somewhere I don't have access to it. It probably shows how strongly I'm going native that this all makes sense to me.

Trivia: The Roman Emperor Nero renamed the month April after himself. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar And Its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: Engineering in History, Richard Shelton Kirby, Sidney Withington, Arthur Burr Darling, Frederic Gridley Kilgour. Blast it; as I was waiting for the bus I got one jumbo-size raindrop sneak through the bus shelter to hit the top of the page, dead center of a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge.